The present invention relates generally to the field of garbage and refuse disposal. More particularly, it relates to increasing the capacity of currently existing landfills so as to allow these landfills to accommodate increased volumes of garbage, refuse, trash or other types of municipal solid waste without extending the physical limits of existing available landfills.
It has long been the practice to dispose of municipal solid waste and the like matter in landfills which are designed specifically for such a purpose. Presently, various municipalities have run across the problem of the lack of availability of suitable sites for Municipal Solid Waste landfills. Consequently, these municipalities have had to make do with their currently existing landfills. The problem is compounded with the fact that existing landfills have become overfilled or filled to near maximum capacity and a crisis situation has developed wherein there is presently a shortage of landfill space for the disposal of municipal solid waste.
In order to alleviate this problem, one approach would be to develop new landfill sites. Another approach is to maximize the usage of existing landfills by increasing their capacity. Presently, increasing the capacity of landfills has been conducted by compacting the municipal solid waste so as to increase the density of the solid waste within the landfill site. Such a technique is taught in Katz U.S. Pat. No. 4,838,733. However, the problem with this type of technique is that biostabilization of the existing municipal solid waste is not facilitated. In fact, compaction of the municipal solid waste by such a method impedes the biostabilization of the municipal solid waste because the more the waste is compacted, the less the probability that the waste will biostabilize. Therefore, compacting only increases the density of the municipal solid waste which is present within the landfill so the actual amount of solid waste material present within the landfill does not decrease.
The present invention provides a method by which the capacity of existing landfills can be increased dramatically through the biostabilization of the existing organic fraction of the municipal solid waste. The invention therefore actually reduces the amount of solid waste present within a landfill. It has been found that municipal solid waste excavated from lower substrate levels within existing landfills was not biostabilized. In fact, various organic material excavated from landfill sites are, remarkably, in almost their original non biodegraded state. The method according to the present invention creates a substantial increase in available airspace by converting this raw nonbiostabilized waste material to an inert state. Therefore, biostabilization of the organic portion of this municipal solid waste may be utilized to increase landfill capacity.